Nothingness

Trapped in the abyss. Caged in nothingness. Windows that only allow to witness the colour of white. We have two choices: live or die. Now, choosing to die may sound idiotic in the world's previous state, however, this world is different. Isolation. Anxiety. Despair. All driving factors to choose the option of death and those alone, with no one to comfort or dissuade them, they eventually give in and choose the most peaceful way out. Why would you want to live in a world built on negative emotion when you can just be freed by the pleasant escape of death? Sadly, for a person like me, it's not that easy. Even if I wanted to die, I don't feel ready yet, there's still so much I need to do.

"We're running out of water" a raspy voice called out from the downstairs of the building. That was Miya, a pretty girl with striking blonde hair, of course I wouldn't make a move though, we're childhood friends and although the temptation is most certainly there, I have bigger priorities. For example, by her raspy voice I'm sure you've already guessed that we've been living off pure rations of water, literal sips per day. You have to do what you have to do to get by.

"No, really? And here I thought this was a swimming pool" Jack sarcastically remarked. He is an average height, dark-brown haired, same colour eyed who's been wearing the same white shirt and black trousers since it all began. Out of all of us, he's the one who has kept most of his self. The majority of people, or from what I've taken a guess at anyway, have fought each other over rations, killed each other over water, then most likely died, either their former self or their body, either way they've become mere remains of their selves.

Currently, I'm lying on a bed. I've been sick for some time and though we have some medicine, we don't want to be wasting it on things like a mild cold. After all, we've only been in this mess for a couple of weeks weak. Besides, it's likely I caught the cold before this mess and it's only just kicked in, it's best I get over it through isolation, as to not spread it to the others, and allow the rhinovirus to disappear from our zone.

Looking out the well-kept window to the side of my comfy white bed, I see the same white nothingness as I have for the past fourteen days. No one has any idea what happened, we could even be the last people left due to the loss of internet. It was up for the first day, everyone coming up with different theories and conspiracies, in the end, there was no right or wrong, there were just simple guesses.

The morning of the second day, I woke up and grabbed my phone to see if there was any new news, that's when it happened. All internet was shut down and the only remaining use of the phone was taking pictures and using built in functions like calculator to try estimate how long we have left. Say for example, we knew that we would run out of water around this time by calculating our daily use of water then seeing how much water we had left, and the rest is easily figured out. It may sound rather strange to run out of water so soon, but we were actually really lucky, especially over some others who had no water to begin with. Day one was the day when all life functioned the same, yet on day two, we didn't just lose the internet, we lost the water stream. That's right, we had no water from our taps and were forced to rely on bottles of water. It was hellish considering we had three people to hydrate. Not to mention, we had to keep ourselves fed as well.

"Lucas. Put food outside your room, make sure to throw anything you put your infected hands on out of the window" Jack shouted through the door.

"Got it" I replied in a shout. It may sound a bit far, and also quite a bit wasteful to throw our resources out of the window, but right now, we couldn't afford anyone else being infected. If we all caught it, it would be much harder to work and try calculating what to do next.

"Question. How long d'you reckon we have till we all croak" Jack asked calmly. He didn't seem to have even a flicker of emotion in his voice as though he didn't have a care; like it had nothing to do with him.

"Tough question. Probably a few days at most. Why, you scared?" I attempted to joke and lightly pass over the subject. Actually, thinking about it, I'm not sure if I care if I die anymore. I mean, it was a good run, we survived as long as we could, tried our best to stay alive and in the end, we'll just die together. It's not as though it's a terrible thing, in fact, it seems like the most peaceful escape from this hell.

"hahaha, scared? Don't even joke about it. When death calls, I'll be waiting" Jack replied in a half-joking, half not, manner. Seems as though we're of the same mind. I may not have it in me to take my own life, and it's no easy or peaceful feat to go out an excruciatingly painful way like dehydration and hunger but once death comes, I'll be fine. I don't care if I die, I would have done it myself but I suppose I'm still hanging on that thread of hope that this is just a dream and I can go back striving to do what I wanted. But, much like Jack, if death calls, I'll accept it with open arms.

"Is that all you two can talk about, seriously?" Miya asked angrily. Her voice echoed from the outside, into the room. Poor, poor Jack, I prey for his safe passage to the others side.